


Aslan and Hobbes

by nimblermortal



Category: Calvin & Hobbes, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Derkins and Pevensie sound the same, Gen, Right?, comparisons, lions and tigers, wish list
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 08:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimblermortal/pseuds/nimblermortal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan can’t help it that her first thought when she sees Narnia is, "I wish Calvin could see this."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aslan and Hobbes

Susan can’t help it that her first thought when she sees Narnia is, _I wish Calvin could see this._

That’s her problem the whole time, because while she is in Narnia and she thinks she is adjusting as well as any of her siblings, that little voice keeps popping up. It’s a land where it is always winter and never Christmas, to be saved by a semi-mythical lion. _Why not a tiger?_ She hears Aslan, of course, that’s what everyone keeps saying, but every time she is listening for someone to say _Hobbes_.

The Witch keeps statues that were once real people in her garden. Susan is terrified, horrified, nearly hysterical, and she still can’t help thinking, _It looks like Calvin’s yard, only in stone instead of snow._

When they’re back in England, she looks for him, but it’s hard to find anyone anymore, and anyway, what would she say? She could go running into his arms, searching for the stuffed tiger, and - babble about a fantasy land she visited with a lion and talking animals? Calvin probably doesn’t carry his tiger anymore. He would probably laugh at her for being childish.

She tries to forget about it and become a woman he could respect - a woman she can respect, living in one world, half raising her unappreciative siblings. And while she’s yelling at Edmund to get his books, he’s going to be late for school, she can’t help thinking longingly of when the only thing she had to be upset about was some stupid kid’s snowballs. She yells a little too hard at Lucy because she’s jealous, and then she has to comfort Lucy all the way to school.

She doesn’t know what to do when they’re back in Narnia. She can’t take this back-and-forth, she can only be one woman, and how can Peter and Edmund and Lucy get by so well? She can only live in one world. She doesn’t have this talent, not like some, who could just as happily live in two or twenty.

(Spaceman Spiff, Tracer Bullet, Stupendous Man, Captain Napalm, Cap’n Calvin, Godzilla, she even remembers Safari Al. She even remembers Invisible Calvin, though she tries not to.)

Somehow she’s not surprised when Aslan says she won’t be coming back. She recognizes the tone in his voice; she’s heard it over and over, the disappointment from on high, but she never expected it to be directed at her. She's the one who always did things right.

_Aslan wouldn’t have been disappointed in Calvin._


End file.
